Martinalia

Welcome to Martinalia. An academic career generates material which for one reason or another does not get into print. There are public lectures and keynote addresses. Some are never intended for publication. Others are commissioned for projects which never get off the ground. There is material prepared for teaching, which may be useful to colleagues and students involved in similar courses. Some projects seem worth sharing with interested readers even though they remain unfinished, lacking the final polish needed for conventional academic publication. Since 2014 I have used Martinalia to publish essays and research reports. 

The term “Martinalia” was coined by my friend Jim Sturgis.  

Magdalene College Cambridge in Mid-Victorian Times

This discussion of nineteenth-century Magdalene grew out of my interest in the education of Charles Stewart Parnell, who entered the College in 1865 and was rusticated (briefly expelled, but he never returned) in 1869. Originally posted here in 2015, the text was re-spaced in May 2020, with additional material at Endnotes 131 and 181.

Read More ...

Fredericton versus Saint John: The New Brunswick Seat of Government, 1785-1882

Ged Martin

In November 1785, Governor Thomas Carleton proclaimed that the seat of government of the recently created province of New Brunswick would be established at Fredericton, around 120 kilometres upstream from the emerging city of Saint John on the Fundy coast.

Read More ...

The Essex parish of South Weald and the Doddinghurst List

Ged Martin

The Doddinghurst List was an anomalous eastward extension of the Essex parish of South Weald across the boundary between Chafford and Barstable Hundreds. Its separate existence ceased to matter around 1850, after the New Poor Law and the creation of a county constabulary made it irrelevant, and it is long forgotten.

Read More ...

The Battle of Britain: Notes on the Origin of the Name

The Battle of Britain of 1940 remains an inspirational episode that proved to be a turning point at a moment of desperate danger in the war against Hitler. Oddly enough, the story of the naming of the conflict seems to have dropped from sight. Not until March 1941, six months after the climax of the air battles, did the clash between the RAF and the Luftwaffe become definitively known as the Battle of Britain.

Read More ...

Waterford: Ireland's Canada County

Tourism Ireland reports that 96,000 Canadians visited the island of Ireland in 2006. Of these, 43 percent were on holiday. Just over half of the holidaymakers (52 percent) stayed for more than 9 nights. Although 40 percent of Canadian tourists reported visiting Ireland's South East region, only 9 percent used hotel accommodation. This report argues that Waterford has a strong claim to be regarded as Ireland's Canada County. 
 

Read More ...

The Cambridge Training College for Women Teachers: the founding decade 1885-1895

The Cambridge Training College was a pioneering institution for the training of educated women to enter teaching as a profession. Founded in 1885 by Frances Buss, headmistress of North London Collegiate School and her deputy, Sophie Bryant, its first Principal was Elizabeth Phillips Hughes. Initially kept at arm's length by the University of Cambridge, which welcomed neither women nor professionalism, it was eventually recognised as an associated institution in 1949, changing its name to Hughes Hall. In the rapidly changing higher world of the 1960s and 1970s, Hughes Hall was opened to both women and men, in all fields of research and advanced studies, achieving full membership of the University as one of Cambridge's four graduate colleges in 2006. This study formed the basis of the first four chapters of the handsomely illustrated commemorative volume, Hughes Hall Cambridge 1885-2010 (London: Third Millennium International, 2011). It is republished here to focus on the founding decade of the Cambridge Training College.

Read More ...

"Housen" -- evidence for the survival and decline of an Essex dialect plural

This essay deals with the persistence and survival in Essex of "housen" as a dialect plural for "house".

Read More ...

Magdalene College Cambridge and the First World War

Although Magdalene was one of the smallest colleges in the University of Cambridge, more than fifty of its members died during the 1914-18 War. This exploratory essay seeks to rediscover the participants in the conflict, and to assess the impact of the War upon the College.    

Modified 7 July 2015

Read More ...

Father Michael O'Donel: The Newfoundland Adventures of a Clashmore County Waterford Parish Priest

The links between Newfoundland and Ireland's County Waterford are well known, but attention usually focuses on Waterford City and its hinterland in Kilkenny and Wexford. However, west Waterford also had strong Newfoundland links, thanks to the fishing port of Youghal in nearby County Cork. The parish priest of Clashmore from 1815 to 1832, Fr Michael O'Donel, had served in Newfoundland with his uncle, who was the island's first Catholic bishop. Another Clashmore man travelled in the opposite direction, and political abuse of St John's merchant Laurence O'Brien can even help us identify the Blackwater quays from which he left 200 years ago.

Read More ...

Waterford and the South-East of Ireland, some links with Australia